During the week of November 14, 2012, a story and video was released by Better Georgia of a presentation given to GOP State Senators from Georgia on October 14, 2012. The Better Georgia story was taken out of context and a distorted sensationalized headline was created for political purposes. Subsequently, the story was picked up and repeated by other local media and then went viral in the national media. In all of this, not one print, TV, or Internet outlet bothered to contact me directly for my side of the story. After personally reaching out to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, I was allowed to write the following op-ed piece. Not to defend myself, but to bring into the forefront of the discussion, substantive issues with regard to regionalism, public-private partnerships, and representative government.
Posted November 25, 2012, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
A real agenda, not a conspriacy theory
By Field Searcy
When I read on Page 185 of the March 2011 Cobb County Comprehensive Plan that the county supports the advancement of sustainable development policies as defined by the United Nations Division of Sustainable Development, I could no longer ignore that the U.N. Agenda 21 (A21) policies were real and thriving in America.
The U.N. policies are detailed in a 300-page document along with the Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide. Sold as protecting the environment, sustainable development policies are more far-reaching than our fields and streams. A21 outlines plans for the control of land use, housing, transportation, food production, consumption patterns, water, energy, education, the role of industry and health care. Sounding familiar? We have been bombarded with these global plans of change.
Warm and fuzzy words like “comprehensive planning,” “smart growth,” “public-private partnerships” and “outcome-based education” were chosen by central planners to camouflage a desired alternate outcome. As adults, we are familiar with marketers using positive labels to encourage us to act in ways not always in our best interest. These words in the A21 plan were carefully chosen to make us feel better about giving up our sovereign rights. Conversely, negative labeling and hate speech are used when citizens disagree.
This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. Elected servants in both parties have worked to implement regionalism and public-private partnerships to fundamentally transform America. Economic models endorsing public-private partnerships violate free market principles by benefiting favored corporations, protecting private gains and leaving taxpayers obligated for losses. It proposes a “Communitarian” model of governance that is diametrically opposed to the American way.
In reality, the U.N. policies include plans to re-engineer human society through regional equity schemes to spread the wealth. Regionalism as a subset of A21 gives appointed regional councils control of vast sums of taxpayer dollars while working unchecked. Once appointed, the taxpayers are unable to remove these councils through elections. It threatens our representative form of government. It violates our one-person, one-vote principle to equal legislative representation.
The goals of protecting our natural resources are worthy. We can embrace the need to conserve the air, water and land as well as educate our children in a positive way. The real issue is the need for deeper research and honest dialogue into the ultimate goals of U.N. Sustainable Development while preserving the American principles of respect for private property rights, free enterprise and representative government. We need to root out who really benefits from the sweeping changes, as it is not the American people. It is no accident citizens across the U.S., including Georgians, are rejecting U.N. Agenda 21 policies.
Field Searcy, of Cobb County, led a presentation on regionalism and Agenda 21 for Georgia Senate GOP members last month.
Source: http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-forward/2012/11/25/a‑real-agenda-not-a-conspiracy-theory/
